5 ms·

Note for those looking for commercial pricing - it is sort of hidden under the top buttons in the download page: http://www.qt.io/download/ http://www.qt.io/do

Note for those looking for commercial pricing - it is sort of hidden under the top buttons in the download page: http://www.qt.io/download/ http://www.qt.io/download/ That said, just having a publicly listed price anywhere feels like a big step forward for Qt. In the past there was just a "Contact Sales" form with whispered mentions across forums about real pricing. I think this dissuaded a lot of indie devs from trying out Qt. I'm not sure why this new site doesn't just have a page called "Pricing" that explains what the monthly pricing means. Answer questions like "Do the tools lock out if the subscription is cancelled or do my rights to published statically linked Qt apps get cancelled?" and "Do I have to pay each month to keep those rights even if there is no active development on an app?". My guess is that Qt must make a bulk of their revenue on enterprise sales and are reticent to open up a self serve sales process (highlighted by the squeeze page they put up when you click the 30 day trial download button). It is a shame because I think Qt could enable a lot of great apps.

milliams 12y ago
It's also strange that the open-source version doesn't have "Full rights to modify source codes". This is clearly an error.
- DSMan195276 12y ago
  I think the catch is that, being GPL licensed, any distribution of the software with modified source would be required to be open-sourced. With there commercial license you wouldn't have to release your code. (Though they list GPL, LGPLv2.1, and LGPLv3, you may or may not depending which license it actually is under and how you compile and run your program). How exactly did they get around the GPL to offer a commercial license anyway? I would have presumed that people doing open-source work on Qt would have submitted their work under only the GPL, and re-licensing that code should be illegal since they didn't write it.
  - milliams 12y ago
    They have an agreement to allow all contributors' work to be relicensed as closed-cource.
    - DSMan195276 12y ago
      Do you have to 'sign' or agree to something before they accept your code then?
      - milliams 12y ago
        Yes. In order to submit a patch though Gerrit, you must agree to https://codereview.qt-project.org/static/cla_individual.html https://codereview.qt-project.org/static/cla_individual.html Key is: Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, Licensor hereby grants, in exchange for good and valuable consideration, the receipt and sufficiency of which is hereby acknowledged, to Digia a sublicensable, irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free and fully paid-up copyright and trade secret license to reproduce, adapt, translate, modify, and prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, make available and distribute Licensor Contribution(s) and any derivative works thereof under license terms of Digia’s choosing including any Open Source Software license. I should note that one further reason for this is to conform with the KDE Free Qt Agreement (http://www.kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.php http://www.kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.p...).
      - kyrra 12y ago
        Google does the same thing[0] whenever you contribute code to any of their open source projects. [0] https://developers.google.com/open-source/cla/individual https://developers.google.com/open-source/cla/individual
        hdevalence 12y ago
        One difference is that the Qt source code is also covered by the KDE Free Qt agreement (linked in a sibling comment), which basically acts as a poison pill to ensure that no future owner of Qt can pull an Oracle and close off development. For this reason, it's my opinion that the Qt CLA is much, much, less onerous than other CLAs, like Google's or Canonical's, in the sense of how much control is actually given away.
- T3RMINATED 12y ago
  Despite Qt being built for the last 4 years by the open source community this is shot in the back! boycott digia
blub 12y ago
They had desktop pricing for quite a while displayed. It used to be 349$/mo/dev for all three major platforms if I recall correctly.
T3RMINATED 12y ago
You know whats sad that Qt as build by the open source community! and those developers dont get a penny! Boycott digia!
hartcw 12y ago
The way the license information is presented is a little misleading. The Community edition is described as for 'Open Source & Hobby Projects', giving the impression that its not possible to release a commercial product using that. Thats not true of course, its LGPL licensed and so can be used for commercial software as long as the license obligations are adherred to. The desktop app I sell uses Qt, against the LGPL license. I would probably pay for the commercial license from them if it was more reasonably priced, but $295 per month to distribute on Mac and Windows is just too much to swallow.
- dugmartin 12y ago
  I missed that subhead and I agree. As long as you dynamically link against the library it's perfectly fine to use it for commercial apps.
  - winslow 12y ago
    Why would someone need/want to use Qt by not dynamically linking the library. I've never understood Qt's business model or what I can and cannot do with it. I just use pyside on my pet projects.
    - pestaa 12y ago
      I believe you would purchase Qt for the training and support options, and not so much for hiding a couple of DLLs in the deliverables.
- vram22 12y ago
  >Thats not true of course, its LGPL licensed and so can be used for commercial software as long as the license obligations are adherred to. What are those obligations? Can you summarize or give a link? Thanks.
  - FigBug 12y ago
    Dynamically link to all Qt libraries. Release all changes made to Qt source code.

milliams 12y ago

It's also strange that the open-source version doesn't have "Full rights to modify source codes". This is clearly an error.

DSMan195276 12y ago
I think the catch is that, being GPL licensed, any distribution of the software with modified source would be required to be open-sourced. With there commercial license you wouldn't have to release your code. (Though they list GPL, LGPLv2.1, and LGPLv3, you may or may not depending which license it actually is under and how you compile and run your program). How exactly did they get around the GPL to offer a commercial license anyway? I would have presumed that people doing open-source work on Qt would have submitted their work under only the GPL, and re-licensing that code should be illegal since they didn't write it.
- milliams 12y ago
  They have an agreement to allow all contributors' work to be relicensed as closed-cource.
  - DSMan195276 12y ago
    Do you have to 'sign' or agree to something before they accept your code then?
    - milliams 12y ago
      Yes. In order to submit a patch though Gerrit, you must agree to https://codereview.qt-project.org/static/cla_individual.html https://codereview.qt-project.org/static/cla_individual.html Key is: Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, Licensor hereby grants, in exchange for good and valuable consideration, the receipt and sufficiency of which is hereby acknowledged, to Digia a sublicensable, irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free and fully paid-up copyright and trade secret license to reproduce, adapt, translate, modify, and prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, make available and distribute Licensor Contribution(s) and any derivative works thereof under license terms of Digia’s choosing including any Open Source Software license. I should note that one further reason for this is to conform with the KDE Free Qt Agreement (http://www.kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.php http://www.kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.p...).
    - kyrra 12y ago
      Google does the same thing[0] whenever you contribute code to any of their open source projects. [0] https://developers.google.com/open-source/cla/individual https://developers.google.com/open-source/cla/individual
      - hdevalence 12y ago
        One difference is that the Qt source code is also covered by the KDE Free Qt agreement (linked in a sibling comment), which basically acts as a poison pill to ensure that no future owner of Qt can pull an Oracle and close off development. For this reason, it's my opinion that the Qt CLA is much, much, less onerous than other CLAs, like Google's or Canonical's, in the sense of how much control is actually given away.
T3RMINATED 12y ago
Despite Qt being built for the last 4 years by the open source community this is shot in the back! boycott digia

blub 12y ago

They had desktop pricing for quite a while displayed. It used to be 349$/mo/dev for all three major platforms if I recall correctly.

T3RMINATED 12y ago

You know whats sad that Qt as build by the open source community! and those developers dont get a penny! Boycott digia!

hartcw 12y ago

The way the license information is presented is a little misleading. The Community edition is described as for 'Open Source & Hobby Projects', giving the impression that its not possible to release a commercial product using that. Thats not true of course, its LGPL licensed and so can be used for commercial software as long as the license obligations are adherred to. The desktop app I sell uses Qt, against the LGPL license. I would probably pay for the commercial license from them if it was more reasonably priced, but $295 per month to distribute on Mac and Windows is just too much to swallow.

dugmartin 12y ago
I missed that subhead and I agree. As long as you dynamically link against the library it's perfectly fine to use it for commercial apps.
- winslow 12y ago
  Why would someone need/want to use Qt by not dynamically linking the library. I've never understood Qt's business model or what I can and cannot do with it. I just use pyside on my pet projects.
  - pestaa 12y ago
    I believe you would purchase Qt for the training and support options, and not so much for hiding a couple of DLLs in the deliverables.
vram22 12y ago
>Thats not true of course, its LGPL licensed and so can be used for commercial software as long as the license obligations are adherred to. What are those obligations? Can you summarize or give a link? Thanks.
- FigBug 12y ago
  Dynamically link to all Qt libraries. Release all changes made to Qt source code.